- Jack Clark was a reporter at Bloomberg when I was an editor there.
- He told me he was leaving to join OpenAI in 2016.
- I told him that was a terrible idea. The rest is history.
In 2016, Jack Clark came up to me in the Bloomberg newsroom in San Francisco and asked if we could go for a walk. As an editor, it’s often not nice when one of your reporters makes such a request.
Sure enough, as we sat on a bench overlooking the bay, Jack told me he was leaving to join a non-profit called OpenAI.
I said that was a terrible idea. OpenAI was less than a year old at the time and was still a relatively obscure AI research group. Its main claim to fame was the (uneven) financial backing of Elon Musk.
I pressed my case. As a reporter on Bloomberg’s Big Tech team, Jack had a pretty steady job. In contrast, OpenAI didn’t seem to have much direction, and I couldn’t see a path for it to become financially viable beyond Musk’s quest for more money. I selfishly wanted Jack to stay at Bloomberg and continue to cover Google and AI, which he was good at.
I thought I was pretty convincing, but Jack ignored me and left.
“Just read research papers”
Jack Clark Stephen Reynolds/Getty Images
He continued to be an influential expert and advisor on AI security and related topics, co-authoring several AI research papers. Jack also built one of AI’s most popular email newsletters, called Import AIwhich researchers follow extensively in the field. He still writes this regularly.
He often told me to “just read the research papers” when I asked how to learn more about AI and get better stories about the technology. He was right. There are many valuable information buried in these letters.
Jack stayed at OpenAI for over four years, doing strategy and communications before becoming director of policy. He might have gotten some equity in that startup, but I’m not sure.
Then in 2020, he left OpenAI and I didn’t hear from him for a while. He emerged a few months later as one of the seven co-founders of Anthropic, which was started by a group of early OpenAI employees.
The co-founders remember
Anthropic is now challenging OpenAI at the forefront of generative AI and large language models. It is backed by Amazon and Google, along with several major venture capital firms.
The co-founders got together last month to talk about Anthropic’s launch. Jack holds court with his colleagues, who remember the early days.
“I met Dario in 2015 when I went to a conference you were at and tried to interview you, and Google PR said I’d read all your research papers,” Jack Dario tells Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, of which. worked at Google.
“I think I was writing ‘Concrete problems in AI security’ when I was at Google,” Amodei replies. “I think you wrote a story about that letter.”
“I did,” Jack says, with a cheeky grin.
Not his style
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic was raising money at a $60 billion valuation. Subsequently, Forbes reported that the seven co-founders, including Jack, will become billionaires.
I asked Jack about it last week and said I wanted to interview him for a story.
“Haha, Ali, thanks, but not in my style,” he replied.
It is true. Jack is one of the gentlest, kindest and most self-deprecating people I have ever met. He is not classic billionaire material.
I am still stunned and trying to process his new situation. What I do know is that Jack’s decision to ignore me was a testament to his passion, shrewdness and vision.
In 2015, when very few people were thinking about AI, he was obsessed with it and constantly pushing to write about the technology at Bloomberg.
Jack knew HE was important. When the chance came, he took a risk and went for it.
